Ex-deputy clerk enters guilty plea

McCready could face up to a year in prison.
WARREN -- The former Warren Municipal Court deputy clerk has pleaded guilty to a theft-in-office charge.
Sandra McCready, 40, of Elm Road, made the plea this week before Judge John M. Stuard of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court. She will be sentenced after a presentence investigation. She was fired from her job in the court's criminal division in late January.
She took $50 from the court, and the theft was uncovered while officials were looking into theft allegations of another worker.
McCready's plea calls for her to repay the $50 and around $10,000 toward a special audit being conducted of the court's finances. The fifth-degree felony charge carries a penalty of up to 12 months in prison, but it is also possible she will get probation, said David Toepfer, an assistant county prosecutor.
He said McCready was using till money at the court, borrowing it and paying it back at various times. At the time in January when the audit was being done, she had taken around $50, Toepfer said.
McCready's theft was uncovered while officials investigated theft allegations against McCready's co-worker, Judith M. DeJacimo, 49, of Glen Drive Northeast. Toepfer said the thefts were unrelated.
DeJacimo worked as deputy clerk in the court's civil division before she was fired late last year over the allegations.
She has pleaded innocent to two counts of theft in office and one count of tampering with records in the disappearance of more than $25,000 from the civil division. The charges are third-degree felonies, and her case is pending in common pleas court. A third-degree felony carries a penalty of from one to five years in prison.